


Old Friends

by LivingSilver



Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hints of Valery/Boris, M/M, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 01:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19415338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivingSilver/pseuds/LivingSilver
Summary: "Wait, we must toast-" Boris starts "to old friends," he looks at Valery, "and new ones,"  he finishes looking at the girl.They toast in agreement, glasses tinkling together, downing the contents smoothly.





	Old Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to say for myself; I'm so thirsty for both of them tbh.
> 
> Also obviously this is based purely on the depictions of characters as they exist within the show.
> 
> fairiequeens.tumblr.com

The streets of Moscow are dark by the time they step out of the Kremlin. Valery already lighting up the cigarette he's been craving for the past few hours.

"Are you hungry? We should get something to eat," Boris asks looking over at the tired professor.

Valery exhales the drag of his cigarette. 

"No, I'm tired," he replies, taking another drag.

"We're getting dinner. You can't live off of cigarettes anyways," Boris says with easy finality and Valery sighs wondering why he even bothers trying to argue anymore.

Boris picks an old favorite of his, a quiet little cafe, tucked away in a side street somewhere, where everything tastes as if it was made by your grandmother; there isn't any real food in Chernobyl he complains. Valery nods along complacently beside him; he's so tired he hardly notices the girl rounding the corner from the intersecting street, and he startles only slightly when she bumps into him quite hard. He's getting ready to apologize profusely, putting his hands out to steady her, when her eyes meet his; an odd familiarity passing over him, the crossing of two worlds.

"Professor Legasov!" She exclaims with a smile, "oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there, but what are the chances? I'm so happy to see you."

The ever present weight of Chernobyl lifts from his shoulders as he looks at her with a smile of his own.

"Yes, what are the chances indeed? It is so good to see you."

Boris watches the exchange with puzzled amusement, before Valery quickly introduces him to what he refers to as one of his brightest students, which causes Boris to be even more confused because the young woman he's looking at is far too pretty to be stuck in a lab all day somewhere studying nuclear physics or any science of that matter. He doesn't fail to note her blush and sideways glance at the professor at the compliment.

"We're getting ready to have dinner, would you care to join us? It seems you two have some catching up to do," Boris offers, eager to interact with someone from Valery's past.

"I would hate to intrude," she demures politely. Boris struggles to place her age; she could be either 18 or 28, but he guesses its closer to the latter if she has since graduated from Legasov's teachings.

"No, really I insist, I would love to hear any stories you have to share about our mutual friend here," Boris replies, cutting a somewhat astonished Valery a glance and a smile.

The girl laughs softly.

"Well then, if that is the case, I simply must join you."

Valery sighs and shakes his head, but Boris catches the hint of a grin playing at his lips and warms at the thought.

"So, for how long were you a student of Professor Legasov's?" Boris asks once they're seated at the cafe.

"Most of my undergraduate career, until I graduated, in addition to being his unofficial assistant," she replies neatly.

"His assistant?"

"Yes, he was forever losing track of papers, missing faculty meetings, research meetings--"

"I only missed a meeting here and there," he defends weakly, with a small grin.

"Important meetings," she admonishes with a raised brow.

"Very well, an important meeting here and there."

"So I took it upon myself to keep things in order for him," she finishes.

"Yes, you were good enough to lend yourself to my much needed aide," Valery replies fondly, thinking of arguing with her in his office, while she gestured to the disarray of papers strewn across his desk, until he had to go to lecture and she had stayed in his office organizing it until he returned to find everything in its place and appointments written neatly on his calendar. He still has those calendars tucked away in his flat somewhere, days past filled with the smooth curl of her handwriting, a record kept of better days; he never had the heart to throw them out.

"I do hope he paid you," Boris jokes lightly.

"Oh no, there was no need," she dismisses, throwing a glance at Valery, "it was enough for me." She finishes vaguely and Boris fills in what is left unsaid, _to be with him._

"And what was he like as a teacher?" Boris continues, an endless well of questions.

"The best, the very best. He always took great care in planning his lectures, and he has a way of explaining even the most complex topics in the simplest way. But still he always made time to tutor students as needed."

She's positively glowing Boris thinks, and it's not just the vodka they've been drinking.

"She's exaggerating I'm sure," Valery replies somewhat sheepishly.

"Did you require tutoring?" Boris presses, disregarding Valery's dismissal of her praise.

"Yes, of course--" she remembers, the soft lull of his voice as they spent hours alone together in his office, and how it would thrill pleasantly down her spine when he would lean down next to her so they could examine some text together, the scent of textbooks and cigarettes clinging to him, the brush of fingertips against hers as they would pass her pen back and forth between them.

"Only because she wanted to discuss the material as it applied to hypothetical concepts not necessarily covered in class," Valery interrupts; he had always looked forward to their sessions, a sudden wave of nostalgia threatens to overwhelm him.

"Only because your lectures were so fascinating," she counters.

Boris moves his gaze between the two of them, and she excuses herself to the ladies room.

Boris fixes Valery with a level stare.

"What?" Valery questions.

"My god Valery, she's young, she's beautiful, she's smart, and she's in love with you."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he dismisses, adjusting his glasses and reaching for his vodka.

"Then you really are a naïve idiot," Boris replies.

"She's a sweet girl, nothing more."

"She's in love with you. If you asked her to marry you right now, she wouldn't say no," Boris insists.

"She's too--young, too good for me," he reasons.

"So you have thought about it then? You and her?" Boris pushes teasingly.

Now Valery fixes him with a level stare, realizing he's been trapped, before relenting beneath Boris' expectantly playful half smile.

"Perhaps. Maybe once or twice in passing--" Boris raises a brow; yes, maybe once or twice in passing he had thought of taking walks with their hands laced together in the sunlight, of coffee together in the morning sitting at his modest kitchen table, and less innocuously once or twice in passing of her flushed, perched on the edge of his desk, and him standing in the v of her legs, hands slowly sliding her skirt up her thighs as he catches her lips with his, "but she was my student; it would have caused a scandal and ruined her academic career," Valery explains evenly.

"She's not a student anymore, and she would marry you, you could have a good life after this Valery," Boris says only half teasingly now.

"Yes, we could get married, and she would waste her days looking after me as I waste away from radiation poisoning and I would make her a widow before her time," Valery finishes the hypothetical situation for him.

"You would still have a good few years before that happens," Boris reasons.

She returns to the table silencing any further remarks from either party. Dessert is served, and Boris decides to move the subject of conversation away from the good professor.

"So a successful young woman such as yourself, surely you're married or you have some boy? You must have something outside of work?"

She laughs politely.

"I hardly have time for boys."

She allows the back of her hand to brush against Boris' resting on the table so near to her as she picks up her fork. If she notices the weight of his gaze, she gives no indication.

_No,_ he thinks idly, _but she has time for men._

They all walk back to her flat together, it's not very far she assures them, there is no need for a taxi.

Boris waits at the foot of the steps as a courtesy, allowing them a moment of privacy between old friends as Valery walks her up to the door.

"Take me to Chernobyl with you," she says quietly.

She hasn't said anything about it all night, but she knows, everyone in the scientific community in Moscow knows, he is on the Chernobyl committee; she knows if even half the things she's heard are true then he is a dead man.

He sighs heavily, looking down at his feet, before raising his gaze back to hers.

"Chernobyl is a death sentence, anyone who goes there will die," he replies softly.

"I could help you."

"You would die."

"But you are there," she says sadly, reaching for his hand, stroking her thumb along the side. Such a simple touch.

Valery's chest clenches painfully.

"And I will die, sooner rather than later, within the next few years I imagine," he admits somewhat morosely.

Tiredness returns, a familiar, impossible ache upon his shoulders.

"We all die anyways, so take me with you," she replies giving him a feeble smile, a single tear escaping down her cheek.

Valery gently thumbs away the tear, warm beneath the pad of his thumb.

"Don't cry," he hushes, "there is no need for tears. I'm an old man anyways, you're young, you have a life ahead of you."

"What if I never see you again?" A few more tears slip down her face. 

_Damn Boris. Damn him._

"Once this is all over, I'll be back here, in Moscow," he reassures her while only half believing himself.

"It will never be over, not in our lifetime," she argues weakly.

He gives a small laugh, remembering how he had said something similar to Gorbachev.

"We will see each other again," and he wants to believe it, but he's not sure he does entirely, so he leans down and kisses her cheek like he had so often imagined doing, lips lingering longer than intended because he's a slowly dying man and he hopes to file the silken feeling of her skin against his mouth away in the cabinet of his memories for lonely years to come.

Boris happens to look up from the sidewalk at that moment, he had wandered off only a few steps; looks up in time to see Valery pulling away, and the girl gently catching his lips with a slight turn of her head. He shouldn’t be here, he thinks. He should leave so they can have the night to themselves, and yet, he can't pull his gaze away, fascinated by the way Valery visibly relaxes into the kiss, hands coming to rest on her arms as she presses against him, and on the doorstep Valery feels weightless once again, he can feel the sun of afternoons past streaming through his office window and warming his cheek, and the delicate press of her lips effectively erasing any thoughts of Chernobyl, radiation poisoning, and men he's sent to die from his mind. He grasps her arms to keep her there, to keep them _both_ there, as she kisses him again, again, small hungry kisses until he has to pull away, because he suddenly has too much breath and not enough all at once, he feels faint, and still her lips chase his.

"Come inside," she murmurs against his mouth, "I don't want you to go."

Inside, yes, where lovers belong, he thinks, but he's too old, it's been too long, but instead of saying any of that, he remembers Boris, god, he hopes he didn't see anything or he'll never hear the end of it, so instead he whispers, "What about Boris?" hoping it will be enough to placate her to reason.

"What about Boris?" Her eyes sparkle mischievously, "he's quite handsome; he can come inside too."

Valery doesn't have time to process the implications of what she could possibly mean, because she couldn't possibly mean what he thinks she does, and any thoughts he may have had about Boris being handsome have been repeatedly pushed to the farthest back corner of his mind, but there's the fact that he's the only other person who understands the madness, who helps him carry the weight, Boris who gets him whatever he asks however impossible, Boris--

"Comrade Shcherbina," she pulls away from him slightly before calling down to Boris, who pretends he's been staring at the sidewalk this entire time. "Professor Legasov and I are going to have a nightcap, would you care to join us?"

Boris looks past her shoulder to Valery, silently gaging the situation. Perhaps whatever he just witnessed between them has passed, perhaps it was only a final kiss between old lovers despite Valery's denial of a previous engagement--only Valery is horrible at lying, but it doesn't matter whatever he just witnessed, because Valery is giving him the smallest okay of nods, and something too similar to relief washes over Boris.

"Yes, of course, you're too kind," he says climbing the stairs.

"My grandmother in the country makes the best cherry vodka, you simply must try it," she says, handing them each a small glass, and filling it nearly to the brim, before filling her own and taking a seat between them on the couch.

"Wait, we must toast-" Boris starts "to old friends," he looks at Valery, "and new ones," he finishes looking at the girl.

They toast in agreement, glasses tinkling together, downing the contents smoothly.

"My god, that is good," Boris says and he means it. It doesn't even burn, there's only smooth faint sweet of cherry sliding down his throat.

"It is very good," Valery agrees, savoring the flavor lingering on his tongue.

"Another then?" She asks already reaching for the bottle, and they both extend their glasses, all downing another round, all flushed and warm as it chases the vodka already consumed from the café.

"Although, it is very good," Boris begins, a moment of decisiveness taking over, it must be him, he thinks, Valery is either too naive or too shy or both most likely, "I think, you would taste even better," he finishes lowering his voice, casting his eyes to her mouth.

Silence hangs heavy between the three of them.

"You're certainly welcome to try, Minister Scherbina," she returns, tilting her face to his.

Next to her, Valery's heart beats rapidly in his chest. Boris is covering her mouth with his own, kissing her fully as she arches into him, but her hand slides over to Valery's, twining her fingers with his, breath catching in his throat as Boris runs his tongue along her lower lip, and she opens for him, tongues meeting chastely at first, before Boris expertly overwhelms her, one hand resting on her thigh, the other cupping her face, kissing her deeply until they break breathlessly apart long moments later.

"Go on Valery, she's even better than the vodka, but then you already know that don't you," Boris says, looking at him with dark eyes from over her shoulder.

So he did see, Valery goes hot at the thought, he knew he'd never hear the end of it, but he didn't quite imagine it would be like this.

"Yes, I do," Valery murmurs answering Boris' rhetorical inquisition, lowering his lips to hers, her fingers tightening against his, her other hand coming to rest against his neck, he licks into her as his touch starved body remembers itself, latent desire surfacing with every desperate swipe of his tongue against hers.

Boris presses in close behind her, resting a hand on her thigh, Valery pulls away to press single, slow kisses at the hinge of her jaw, then just below, then over her pulse point, her head falls back against Boris' strong shoulder, exposing the line of her throat to him as he makes his way down, lips lingering on her collar bone, then the hollow of her throat.

Boris takes advantage of her upturned face, kissing her again while Valery undoes the buttons of her blouse, replacing each with kisses of his own until he reaches the waist band of her skirt. Boris releases her mouth and unzips her skirt, so Valery can tug it gently down her legs and Boris helps her finish shrugging out her blouse.

Valery crooks two fingers past the hem of her panties, letting out a small "oh" and raising an ever distinctive brow, stroking her lightly; she gasps at the contact.

"What?" Boris asks roughly.

"She's soaking," Valery replies, studying her carefully, before hooking his fingers instead in the waistband and tugging those down her legs as well.

Valery drops his to knees on the floor in front of the couch, exchanging a look with Boris, who finishes pulling the girl the rest of the way into his lap, her back flush against his chest, thighs splayed wide on either side of his. Boris watches him trail kisses along the inside of her thighs before lightly kissing her clit and curling his tongue against her; she sighs airily in Boris' lap.

Boris slips his hands up beneath her bra to cup her breasts, teasing her nipples with his thumbs. She whimpers, overwhelmed by the sensation of Legasov ardently licking her open, and Scherbina's hands on her, his length hard in his pants pressed against the curve of her ass, his voice low at her ear as he finally voices all the thoughts he couldn't during dinner.

"Tell me, did you ever get wet during Professor Legasov's class?" He rasps against the shell of her ear; the low baritone of his voice humming all the way down to the base of her spine.

"Yes," she confesses breathily, and Valery hums against her in response, fingertips pressing into her outer thighs.

"And what exactly did you think about?" Boris asks, tweaking a nipple.

"About him fucking me on his desk, in his chair, against his bookcase--" she breaks off with a loud moan as the professor flattens his tongue languidly against her, every stroke unhurried and yet she's coming apart faster than she ever has.

"You certainly have an imaginative student here, Valery," Boris comments against the column of her throat.

Valery pulls away, looking up at them through the thick lens of his glasses.

"I can assure you, you were quite a distraction to me as well my dear," he replies smartly, returning to the task at hand.

She cards her fingers through his hair; lips and tongue caressing her just so, until she's shaking in Boris' arms.

"Professor--Professor Legasov," she cries, panting, as he imbibes the sweetness of her release, and Boris runs kisses along her exposed shoulder.

Valery eases her through every shudder of pleasure he can draw from her body before withdrawing, only for her to pull him up by his tie for an open mouthed kiss.

They manage to make their way to the bedroom in a tangle of limbs and loosened ties, clothes shed in careless pieces along the way. The three of them seeking oblivion found only in lover's bodies beneath the sheets until they are spent and pleasantly exhausted, sleep enveloping them peacefully together.

When Valery awakes to the sun beginning to stream in around the edges of the curtains, he feels energized for the first time in a long time, since perhaps even before Chernobyl.

_For how long has he really been dying._

The girl sleeps, face curled into the crook of his neck, and Boris beyond her, face pressed against the pillow.

He blushes in the half morning light, events of the previous night returning to him in bits and pieces. He glances down at the girl, stroking her hair. She can never go to Chernobyl, no matter how useful she might be, she must remain sleeping peacefully untouched by the poison of radiation forever in his memory. He thinks of Boris. Too late to save. He hopes he will not suffer so terribly at the end. _Which of them will die first._ A whisper at the back of his mind imagines them looking after each other, but it quickly dissolves. Boris is a party man after all. He has a reputation to uphold no matter how his hands may have brushed his, how his gaze may have met his in heated moments; it is only a passing thing, he tells himself.

The weight of Chernobyl threatens to return, but then she stirs against his shoulder, drawing him from his reverie, eyes fluttering open to meet his.

"Good morning," she whispers.

"Good morning," he returns.

Moments pass between them; he tilts his face to hers, gently capturing her lips in his, carefully pressing her onto her back, her legs opening wide to welcome him as he moves into the space between her hips, hardening against her thigh as their kisses become more insistent.

He enters her, tender from the night before, nails biting into his shoulders, swallowing her soft gasps as he fucks her sweetly.

"I see you've started without me," Boris says, voice rough from sleep, propping himself on his side.

They all exchange mutual smiles, and she turns her face to him and he eagerly covers her upturned lips with his own, slipping a hand between her legs to stroke her clit. She wraps a hand around his length, stroking him in time with Valery's unhurried rhythm, hooking an ankle around the professor's hips to draw him deeper. Valery groans at the unexpected change; he's not going to last much longer.

Her orgasm washes over her suddenly, without warning, back arching away from the mattress, spasming around Valery's cock; he spills within her. Boris isn't sure who is more beautiful and it only takes a few more strokes of her hand to have him coming undone in her grasp.

She makes eggs and coffee for them after they've showered away the previous night's passion; Boris and Valery both returned to their now rumpled suits. When she can stall them no longer, Boris pulls her close, kissing her cheek and bidding her farewell with the hope of meeting again, and withdraws politely to the doorstep outside.

Valery presses a kiss to her forehead.

"I don't want you to die," she pleads brokenly as if he has any say in the matter.

"Nor do I, yet sadly, it is already so," he replies, unable to ease her pain or his.

"But as I said, I am old, you are young, life still ahead of you. Live enough for me as well, will you?" He holds her steady in his gaze, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly.

She can only nod bravely, voice trapped in the hollow of her throat, the only defense against the onslaught of imminent grief welling within her.

They share a final brief kiss as if it would absolve them both of the pain; they both pretend it does, and she lets him go with a delicate smile, wishing them both well as they leave to return to the place of their foreshadowed demise.

"You'll be alright Valera, _we'll_ be alright," Boris says while they hail a cab in that typical way Boris way of his which leaves no room for argument or dissension, the morning light catching his salt and pepper hair.

"Yes, I think," Valery looks at Boris, his last remnant of sanity in all of this madness, "we will."


End file.
